Community Blog

          Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Lech Lecha. Tomorrow, we will hear our Bar Mitzah chant from the Torah the parasha from his birthday weekend, Parashat Pinchas, but the rescheduled date for his ceremony and celebration also suits this momentous occasion.

          In Lech Lecha, God tells Abram to “Go forth, from the land of your birth to a new land that I will show you.” And Abram does. He takes his wife and nephew and some friends and workers and they leave Mesopotamia to settle in the Holy Land and start a new life, a new world built with a vision of monotheism and Divine Justice.   At thirteen, Preston certainly isn’t being kicked out of his parents’ house to a new land, especially not during a pandemic with quarantine suggestions, but he is being asked now to embrace the covenant set forth in this parasha. As they become “Children on the Commandment” (what “Bar Mitzvah” really means), we ask our young people to take up the cause for justice and living in the image of God, continuing the legacy of our father Abraham.

Nineteenth century German rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg taught that when Abraham was told his offspring would be “as the dust of the Earth” and “as the stars of the sky” God wasn’t simply referring to the number. Rather, Rabbi Mecklenburg and Bereshit Rabbah agree this is a matter of “quality over quantity.” Bereshit Rabbah points out that the dust of the earth is all-enduring, swallowing up civilizations and precious metals over the millennia, and Rabbi Mecklenburg quotes the Book of Daniel to explain that the descendants of Abraham will illuminate the world as the stars brighten the night sky: “And the knowledgeable will be radiant like the bright expanse of sky, and those who lead the many to righteousness will be like the stars forever and ever.”

Each new person who commits themselves to Judaism, whether as a Bar Mitzvah or a convert or someone who simply re-embraces their Jewish identity at some point in life, is committing themselves to a life of promoting justice and spreading light in dark times, fighting for an enduring place for Jewish life in an inclusive and diverse world community. I know that Preston will undertake this challenge thoughtfully and with great enthusiasm, and I hope the rest of us do as well.

May you go forth to a new world of peace and righteousness, and may you be a blessing. Lechi Lach.